The Maori As He Was - A Brief Account of Maori Life as it Was in Pre-European Days

Best, Elsdon

Edité par Dominion Museum, Wellington, New Zealand, 1934

A propos de cet article

xv, (1), 280 pages; Former owner's name on ffep, otherwise clean and secure in original green cloth binding with gilt lettering and image of Maori man on front cover, minor rubbing at head of spine - a very nice example of this uncommon treatis on the Maori people. Frontispiece is a b/w photograph of Wiremu te Manawa of the Ngati-Raukawa Tribe; black and white illustrations throughout. The author Elsdon Best (1856 1931) was an ethnographer who made important contributions to the study of the Maori of New Zealand. Elsdon Best was born in Tawa Flat, New Zealand; his family moved from its farmstead at Grasslees Farm to Wellington in the mid 1860s. After an unsatisfying year working for the Civil Service, Best moved to Poverty Bay, where he worked in farming and forestry. In 1881 Best joined the Armed Constabulary and was based in the Taranaki during increasing tensions between the Maori and the colonial settlers. He transferred to a Maori contingent and later that year participated in the raid on Parihaka. After a brief stint working in Hawaii and California in the cattle and forest industries, Best returned to New Zealand and the timber industry. He had increasing contact with the Maori and began studying their language and culture. When Percy Smith established the Polynesian Society in 1892 with the intention of promoting interest in and discussion of Polynesian history and culture, Best became a foundation member. In 1895, Best took a position as quarter-master with the road works in the Urewera district, beginning in Te Whaiti. For the next 15 years, he worked in the district and established relationships with many Tuhoe elders, recording the facts of the culture and traditions of the Tuhoe. His field records and note books provide invaluable documentation of the Tutakangahau. Best's devotion to his study, together with his facility in Maori, allowed him to win the confidence of the Tuhoe, whose traditions he published in a series of articles in the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute and the Journal of the Polynesian Society. In 1897, he published the monograph Waikaremoana, the Sea of Rippling Waters, With a Tramp through Tuhoe Land, in which he presented the lore of the district. In 1910, Best was appointed ethnologist at the Dominion Museum which allowed him to pursue his research in a more focused manner. In 1912, he published The Stone Implements of the Maori, which was followed four years later by an accompanying bulletin on Maori storehouses. In 1919, his The Land of Tara appeared, a history of the Maori of Wellington Harbour. A systematic survey of traditional Maori culture, The Maori, appeared in two volumes in 1924, and in 1925 Best's Tuhoe, the Children of the Mist. This a monumental study in 1200 pages of the traditional history and culture of tribe with which he had spent so much of his life. From 1919 to 1923 Best took part in each of the four Dominion Museum ethnological expeditions.

N° de réf. du vendeur 45873

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: The Maori As He Was - A Brief Account of Maori Life as it Was in Pre-European Days
• Éditeur: Dominion Museum, Wellington, New Zealand
• Date de parution: 1934
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Édition: Second Edition.
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Anthropology
  • Australasia and South Pacific
  • Travel and Exploration